Toward noon, a few minutes before the sun reaches his zenith, a part of the Slava cake is placed upon the table together with a lighted wax candle. To this midday meal many more guests are usually invited than had attended the supper on the previous evening; furthermore, on this day even a stranger--whatever his religion may be--has the right to enter the house and to claim hospitality. For instance, the Royal Prince Marko had many friends amongst the Turks, and they would invariably come to him as guests on his Slava day. All the guests rise together, cross themselves with great reverence, and, in perfect silence, with glasses filled, they await the address to be made by the Svetchar. Again three, or perhaps more, toasts are proposed and accepted, and, of course, as many times are the glasses again emptied and re-filled before the 'midday' meal is even begun. Eating and drinking, in all cases, "to the glory of God, the Holy Trinity, to the Holy Slava" and so forth continue till late at night, when the guests remember that it is time to go home. Many, however, remain in the house all night and for the next day. Some devotees of good wine used actually to remain, on occasions, for three whole consecutive days and nights. This very extreme devotion to the saints has been practised more especially at Nish, and in that neighbourhood, and has furnished the celebrated Serbian novelist Stefan Strematz with abundant material for one of the finest, as it is undoubtedly one of the wittiest, novels that have been written in Serbian.
Another festival, which the Serbians, like other nations, conduct with many rites and customs of unmistakably pagan origin and which fills the hearts of all with joy, is Christmas. It is a saying of the Serbian people that "there is no day without light--neither is there any real joy without Christmas."
The Serbian peasant is, as a general rule, an early riser, but on Christmas Eve (Badgni dan) everybody is up earlier than usual, for it is a day when each member of the household has his hands full of work to be done. Two or more of the young men are sent out from every house to the nearest forest [22] to cut, and bring home, a young oak tree, which is called Badgnak. (The etymology of this word is obscure, but it is probably the name, or derived from the name, of a pagan god.) When the young man who is to cut the tree has selected it, he kneels down, and murmuring words of greeting and uttering a special prayer, he throws at it a handful of wheat or corn; then he makes the sign of the Cross three times and begins carefully to cut in such a direction that the tree must necessarily fall toward the East, and at just about the moment when the sun first shows himself above the horizon. He has also to see that the tree does not touch, in falling to earth, the branches of any tree near it, otherwise the prosperity of his house would most surely be disturbed during the ensuing year. The trunk of the tree is now cut into three logs, one of which is rather longer than the others.